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Back The Darkest Shore Save as PDF
Chapters (76)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Author
  3. Also by Karen Brooks
  4. Title Page
  5. Dedication
  6. EXPLANATORY NOTE
  7. PART ONE
  8. One
  9. Two
  10. Three
  11. Four
  12. Five
  13. Six
  14. Seven
  15. Eight
  16. Nine
  17. Ten
  18. Eleven
  19. Twelve
  20. Thirteen
  21. Fourteen
  22. Fifteen
  23. Sixteen
  24. Seventeen
  25. Eighteen
  26. Nineteen
  27. Twenty
  28. Twenty-One
  29. Twenty-Two
  30. Twenty-Three
  31. Twenty-Four
  32. Twenty-Five
  33. Twenty-Six
  34. Twenty-Seven
  35. Twenty-Eight
  36. PART TWO
  37. Twenty-Nine
  38. Thirty
  39. Thirty-One
  40. Thirty-Two
  41. Thirty-Three
  42. Thirty-Four
  43. Thirty-Five
  44. PART THREE
  45. Thirty-Six
  46. Thirty-Seven
  47. Thirty-Eight
  48. Thirty-Nine
  49. Forty
  50. Forty-One
  51. Forty-Two
  52. Forty-Three
  53. Forty-Four
  54. Forty-Five
  55. Forty-Six
  56. Forty-Seven
  57. Forty-Eight
  58. Forty-Nine
  59. Fifty
  60. Fifty-One
  61. Fifty-Two
  62. PART FOUR
  63. Fifty-Three
  64. Fifty-Four
  65. Fifty-Five
  66. Fifty-Six
  67. Fifty-Seven
  68. Fifty-Eight
  69. Fifty-Nine
  70. Sixty
  71. Sixty-One
  72. Epilogue: Autumn 1706
  73. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  74. GLOSSARY
  75. LIST OF CHARACTERS
  76. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Even so, these were small victories that she knew wouldn’t sustain her for much longer. Her body ached with fatigue and hunger; she couldn’t cease worrying her gum where her tooth had come out. All that before she considered what the pricking had done. Raising an arm to the dim light, she examined the marks the pricker, a young man from Leith with a pale complexion and mean pebble eyes, had left upon her. There were rows and rows of superficial and deep scratches. So many. Too many. Perhaps she’d been here longer than five days.

But it was over now. At least for the time being.

Rolling onto her side, wincing as the straw poked through her thin, filthy clothes, she caught a whiff of the bucket they’d left her. Told she was lucky to have it, especially after she threw the contents at the last constable to pass her some stale bannock and a watery kale soup, she knew it was because they were afeared where she’d shit if they didn’t. From the smell of the straw, someone had already used it to piss in and not just the rats that scurried about at night.

She ran her good fingers over her broken ones. After that first day when the reverend’s men had beaten her bloody and they’d decided to search her house and poor Nicolas’s for the figurine she admitted making, she’d been left to suffer. If it hadn’t been for the Tolbooth keeper, old Alick, she wasn’t sure she’d even be alive. Bringing the medicines Sorcha, Nettie and Janet had smuggled to him, along with some cloths, he had splinted and bandaged her broken fingers together.

‘This be a sorry business, Beatrix,’ he’d said. ‘I want no part in it.’ He worked using his one good hand and his teeth, asking her to help with the fingers she could move, and deftly bound her digits together. He’d also given her some whisky Sorcha had sent him by way of thanks for what he was doing to numb her pain. It had worked that night — and for a few nights after. Bless him.

But that was before the pricker arrived. When had that been? She frowned. She recalled one of the bailies complaining about it being cold for mid-May. Not that it mattered in here. It felt like a lifetime ago. She still couldn’t bear to have her breast brush against anything, not even the fabric of her shift. And as for her cunt…